Don't Go
by falconak
Summary: After Buttercup comes back to Victors Village, Katniss falls asleep on the floor, but wakes up in her bed. How did she get there?


At the end of Mockingjay, after Buttercup comes back to Katniss, how does she make it to her bed? One shot, written from Peetas POV.

* * *

I'm washing dishes when I see the wheelbarrow, and my breath catches in my chest. It's one of the carts they use to pick up the dead, and Katness is lying limp in the bottom. I see her braid hanging over the side and I don't breathe again until the man pushing the cart hoists her up by the arm and helps her through the door.

I unclench my hands from the edge of the counter and turn off the faucet, move away from the window. I keep trying to make sense of what I feel when I look at her, but they're all jumbled together with lies and untruths. I don't know what I would do if she were dead.

I laugh at that thought, even though I realize there's nothing funny about it. A few months ago I wanted her dead. I remember how it felt, my hands around her neck, and a burning shame drives me from the kitchen and the view of her house. I have no right to feel anything for her – relief, guilt, sadness, longing. This is a shortlist of what I feel when I look at Katness Everdeen.

As I try to find something else to do in my empty house, I question for the hundredth time today why I came back here, to the ghosts and the silence. Since she left the Capitol, I knew I'd return to 12. I couldn't stay there, with the doctors and the memories. I couldn't return to 13 for the same reasons. Haymitch and Katniss were here, and they're all I really have left.

"There weren't a lot of options." I admit to a silent room.

Still, chasing after a shell-shocked girl who panics at the sight of my face might not have been the best idea for either one of us.

I shake my head. _Fake it till you make it_. I go upstairs, take my medicine, take a shower, get dressed for bed. I'm just going through the motions, and before I know it, the sky has gotten dark.

Nighttime is the hardest part. I suppose it has been since the Games. The nightmares came before, but after my visit to the Capitol, they got worse, and harder to tell from reality. I take medicine to help me sleep, but it doesn't stop the dreams, and when I wake, I'm groggy and disoriented. I don't know if the medicine even helps, but I take it anyway.

I remember a time when we helped each other with our dreams, found comfort in each other's arms. Those memories are mine, and since they were never recorded, the Capitol couldn't touch them. Still, there's not much that I trust about my memories, and I'm not sure I'm even remembering them the way they happened. I'm sure I haven't gotten a good night sleep since then though.

I'm just about to resign myself to sleep when the screaming starts.

* * *

I freeze, and listen for a moment to be sure I'm not hallucinating, but no, what I hear is real, and someone is in pain. I'm out the door before I realize who it could be. There are only a few options; Victors Village is mostly deserted, although people returning to the Seam have occupied a few of the farthest houses. Haymitch lives next door, but his house is dark, and that is not his voice.

I want to turn around and go back inside, I don't want to hear her crying. It's fainter now, muffled by walls and distance, but it buzzes inside my head like a wasp, and I can't ignore it.

I'm up the front steps of her house before I know it, but my resolve gives way at the door.

_What are you thinking?_ I ask myself angrily.

Even if she needs help, it can't come from me. Just the sight of me would make things worse, and I don't want to confuse her any more.

I shake my head and compromise on peering through the window beside her door. At least I can make sure she's all right. If she does need someone, I can go get Haymitch, or Greasy Sae. They can help her better than I can now.

It's dark inside her house, but the moon is out, and I can see a figure on the floor. I can still hear her crying, but it's softer now. I can't see her face.

My stomach twists, and I sink to the floor, with my back against her door. Everything inside me is screaming at me to go inside, to take her in my arms and hold her, to push away everything that's bad, and replace it with something good. But I have nothing good to give her.

I rest my head against my knees, and sit there listening to her sobs until they go quiet, my eyes shut tight. This is all that I can do.

When some time has past, and the moon hangs in a different part of the sky, I stand up again and go to leave.

Peering through her window makes me feel awful, but I tell myself it's just one more look, to make sure she's all right. What I see twists at my chest in a new way, when I thought I was out of ways to be hurt.

I can see her lying on the ground in a small heap, a scraggly cat sitting by forlornly, mewing pitifully in her direction. She's not moving, and the thought that she might have hurt herself knocks the wind out of me like a punch to the gut.

In a near panic, I open the door and kneel by her side. Her face is puffy and red, and too thin, but she seems otherwise okay. I run a hand through my hair and look around, unsure what to do now that I'm inside. Some part of me knows that I should go now - back to my house without disturbing her any more than I already have, but I can't bring myself to leave her on the floor like this.

It's all too easy to gather her into my arms, and she fits against my chest like a puzzle piece I didn't know was missing. She weighs almost nothing, light as a feather, as a bird. I'm not the only one who hasn't been coping well after the war.

As I carry her up the stairs to her bedroom, she turns against my chest, and I freeze, terrified she'll wake up. I don't know what I could say to explain why I'm in her house, and I know I have no right to be. But she only shifts, and one of her hands finds my shirt, clenches into a fist. I finish climbing the stairs and lay her down on her bed, heart pounding.

The covers are untouched, and the room is barren. It doesn't look like anyone's been living here, and I wonder where she sleeps. I unknot her hand from my shirt, and reach down to unlace her boots. I place them together beside the bed and pull the covers over her.

As I turn to go, I hear her move under the sheets and turn, afraid she'll wake up before I'm gone. Whisper quiet, I hear her say my name. "Peeta." My heart stops, and I can feel my eyes widen, but no, she's still asleep. Between her closed eyes, her brow is knotted in concentration or pain, I can't tell which.

"Peeta, no, stop," she mumbles, and I suddenly know all too well what her nightmare is about tonight.

My heart sinks. I should never have gone into her house, stirred up these ghosts. I haven't made anything better tonight - I've only made them worse. I know she can't forgive me for what happened, but at least if I stay away she won't be reminded. I should have gotten Haymitch. I can't hear any more of this.

I turn to leave as fast as I can without making much noise. I'm almost out her bedroom door when I hear her finish the thought.

"Don't go."

* * *

Back in my own house, I shut the front door and lean against it, drained.

Of all the things she could have said in her sleep, that is not what I expected. I rummage around inside my head, trying to untangle what I feel about this. I'm tired, but I feel relief, bordering on elation.

I realize that even after everything we've been through, I'm still not ready to let her go. Despite my confusion about things, that need to be near her still hasn't gone away.

So even though I'm tired from the day, I know there will be no sleep for me tonight.

I decide to bake.


End file.
